Music News (6/5/19)

Mickey Jack Cones To Lead Relaunched Verge Records

Mickey Jack Cones and Emmanuel Zunz

Indie label Verge Records, which had been the genesis of music company ONErpm, has relaunched with producer, publisher and artist manager Mickey Jack Cones at the helm. The Nashville-based Verge Records will leverage ONErpm’s global presence to discover and sign new talent.

Originally founded in 2006, Verge began as a social enterprise that won a grant from New York University’s Stern School of Business ‘Maximum Exposure Business Plan Competition’ to sign artists from impoverished areas, and reinvest profits from those releases in the artists’ communities to fund music education programs. The newly re-emerged Verge Records will contribute a portion of its annual profits to charitable organizations.

Derek Austin has signed a worldwide co-publishing deal with JRM Publishing and Round Hill Music Nashville.

Austin grew up on a dairy farm in Minnesota and learned to play guitar and started writing his own songs during college in Washington. After college, he spent time in Alaska as an Air Traffic Controller before ultimately making the move to Nashville to pursue his real passion, music. He is currently writing songs for his first album.

JRM Publishing is a boutique publishing company based out of Nashville with a diverse roster of writers including Jimmy Robbins, Eric Arjes, Derek Austin, and kyd the band.

As a teen, Schnacky began uploading cover songs on Instagram and built a grassroots fanbase of more than 500,000 followers. He released the track “Hello Beautiful,” which earned more than one million streams in eight days. The follow up, “Maybe We Will,” as earned more than 50 million streams. He is currently prepping his Big Machine Records debut album, alongside producer Dann Huff.

Brandi Carlile Signs With BMI

Brandi Carlile, along with her longtime collaborators Tim and Phil Hanseroth, have signed a long-term deal with BMI for performing rights representation.

Carlile has had a landmark year following the release of her Grammy-winning album By The Way, I Forgive You. Produced by Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings and recorded at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A, the album includes 10 songs written by Carlile and longtime collaborators and bandmates Tim and Phil Hanseroth.

By The Way, I Forgive You garnered six nominations, making Carlile the most-nominated woman at the 61st Grammy Awards. Her wins for the evening included Best Americana Roots Performance, Best Americana Roots Song, and Best Americana Album. Her other nominations included Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year. In January of this year, she spearheaded the Girls Just Wanna Weekend, a music festival with an all-female lineup in Riviera Maya, Mexico.

Over the course of their career, Carlile and her band have released six albums, and garnered seven total Grammy nominations.

As the newest member of the BMI family, Carlile joins fellow BMI writers including Kacey Musgraves, John Prine, Maren Morris, Lady Gaga, Shakira, Khalid, and Halsey among many others.

Nashville’s Hutton Hotel To Host Summer Songwriting Retreats

Photo: Courtesy Hutton Hotel Nashville

Hutton Hotel in Nashville will host a series of weekend Writers Retreats in July, August and September 2019.

Aspiring songwriters will be able to learn from other writers and sound engineers during each of the three four-day workshops. Guests will spend time in the hotel’s writer studios learning about the creative process, see the sights of Nashville, and leave the weekend with their first recordings. The Writers Retreats will be under the direction Adam Taylor, Technical Production and Writers Studio Manager, who has recorded eight Grammy-nominated albums, and Jill Schmidt, Director of Programming for Analog at Hutton Hotel.

The retreat will host an intimate group of up to four guests for each weekend, each staying in their own one bedroom suite or Executive King room at the iconic hotel. Songwriter Jamie Floyd will host in July and September, and Pete Sallis will host in August. Sound engineer Sean Sullivan will work with the writers to learn how to lay down tracks in the Studios.

The Writers Retreat package includes accommodations in Hutton Hotel’s Executive King, Midtown One-Bedroom or West End One-Bedroom suites; a food and beverage credit of $250 to use throughout the stay; welcome reception in the Writers Studios; time with a songwriter in the Writers Studios; time with a sound engineer in the Writers Studios; solo time in the hotel’s Writers Studios for writing and brainstorming. Rates for the Writers Retreats begin at $2,420 plus tax for three nights for an Executive King.

Maren Morris and Zedd recorded their smash hit “The Middle” at the Hutton Hotel’s Writers Studios. Dierks Bentley and Ryan Tedder helped idealize the concept each of the writer’s studios, which opened in 2017.